Record warm temperatures measured in the first nine months of this year mean that the world has already reached the halfway point towards the arbitrary “threshold” of a 2C increase on pre-industrial levels judged to be potentially risky for climate change, the Met Office said.
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So far, several programs to stop the greenhouse gas emissions have been going on, but the World Bank in its recent report has warned that if no inclusive and climate-smart developments are made it can put another 100-million people into poverty. Limiting the temperature rise to 2 degrees would reduce exposure by over 10 million people in all but two nations listed (Thailand and Myanmar).
Climate scientists say if global warming continues unabated, its risky effects could include the flooding of coastal cities and island nations, disruptions to agriculture and drinking water, the spread of diseases, and the extinction of species.
The Met Office, the British meteorological agency, said global temperatures in January-September were 1.02 C above the 1850-1900 average, adding that the remainder of the year is expected to remain hot because of the El Nino weather phenomenon.
“We have a window of opportunity to achieve our poverty objectives in the face of climate change, provided we make wise policy choices now”, said Stephane Hallegatte, a senior World Bank economist who led the team that prepared the report.
Members of the Climate Vulnerable Forum also pledged to do more themselves to contain global warming, aiming to inspire and challenge powerful countries ahead of the Paris summit starting in less than three weeks.
Bank experts estimate that a global temperature increase of 2-3C (3.6-5.4F) would result in the spread of malaria and an estimated 48,000 additional deaths among children under the age of 15 resulting from diarrheal illness by 2030. The report predicts, for example, that food prices in Sub-Saharan Africa will jump by 12 percent by 2030 due to falling farm yields.
“I think that people are justified in being disappointed about the outcome in Copenhagen”, Obama told PBS’s Jim Lehrer in 2009, “What I said was essentially that rather than see a complete collapse in Copenhagen in which nothing at all got done and would have been a huge backward step, at least we kind of held ground and there wasn’t too much backsliding from where we were”.
“It will need to address this before it can reliably practise what the report preaches”, he declared.
“International collaboration on climate change is largely based on considerations other than the changing climate, such as regional links, or through countries sharing similar development levels or geographical commonalities”, CCC Commissioner Emmanuel de Guzman said. “Many of these people are so poor that they have no impact on aggregate statistics, and this is a better approach that allows the focus to be on them”.
Other than reining in carbon emissions – one of the major topics to be debated at the COP21 global climate summit – countries can prepare by developing early warning systems for flood protection and introducing heat-resistant crops.
The Honourable Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, returned to Ottawa following her participation at the Pre-COP ministerial meeting in Paris, France.
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The report is one of the first to connect climate and poverty at the level of the household.
